English Version | I'll love you until I get tired of you

Olga and Cyril Mowforth married in June 1940, but separated three months later, when he left for the war - that's how they spent the first six years as husband and wife, away from each other. Cyril was recruited and sent to fight in North Africa and later in Northern Europe, leading the Nazis to their final defeat. Olga remained in Sheffield, England, trying to survive in other ways: through various voluntary roles, social obligations and domestic chores - and with as much optimism as she could manage, given the privations of the time and the constant fear of German bombing. Despite setbacks, the young couple found a way to keep the romance alive, and during the "separation" they exchanged around a thousand letters and postcards, proof that not even distance could shake the love they felt. Cyril, whose unit was confronted with the horrors of the concentration camps, never stopped believing that he would see Olga again, who always remained optimistic. "Look ahead. Those old memories are precious, but only until we make new ones”, she wrote in one of her missives. The correspondence between the two, who have since died, was found in the attic of the family home by their daughter, Sue Mowforth, who decided to donate the manuscripts to the Imperial War Museum London. After all, those letters are not just a testimony to a love that is larger than life, they are a faithful portrait of society and the world at one of the most critical periods in its history. And proof that some things are destined to work out, no matter what. "Mum wrote twice as much as dad, often not knowing where he was but the letters always found him”, Sue told The Sunday Post. Olga and Cyril Mowforth's story could be straight out of a fairy tale, but it's real. Only, in the midst of the cynicism in which we live, it's hard to believe that two people could have loved each other like that.

A very different picture from the one Rui, 27, shares with us: "In two words - a disaster. When you're in your twenties everything is a mess. You start the decade with an unbridled thirst to make a name for yourself, which is natural for a human being just entering the first chapter of adult life. Dating doesn't escape this thirst. We've reached our 'roaring twenties'. We want to experience everything, we want a release, we want to be seen as adults. These are years of true revelry. Hearts are broken, even shattered, but we're told it's natural. I've always found it bizarre, but I've never questioned the advice of those who have been at it longer. Time passes and the revelry is no longer stimulating, it becomes a storm tide - may the Giant Adamastor take us to the bottom of the sea and take us away from the torment of yet another vain encounter. Of course, this feeling isn't unique to me, all my peers are experiencing the same thing. This leads us to the conclusion that we're all directionless, flailing about and doing what we can to avoid causing long-term damage. After 25 you think things will get better, but the fog remains. When you're close to 30 and nothing in your life is going your way, you end up thinking you're a goner. And with this passage, it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate this colossus that is the dating universe.”

Seemingly, everything was meant to be otherwise. Rui lives in an ultra-cosmopolitan city (Lisbon), in a free and democratic country (Portugal), has a nice job, is good-looking, knows lots of people, goes to the right places, etc., etc. His love CV was supposed to be as brilliant as his smile. And yet it's not. Like many young adults of his generation, Rui complains about how tiring it is to navigate life in love, much to blame for the unbridled development of technology. "In an increasingly digital world, finding love or, if we want to be more basic, finding a decent person to go for a drink with and, perhaps, end the evening by arranging a next date, is almost as complicated as finding a happy outcome to the social conflicts we experience. It's a minefield. Being on Tinder or Grindr is similar to being on a food delivery app. You admire what you feel like eating and place the order. Then everyone goes on with their lives - and when they meet again on the street, at parties, or anywhere in this tiny Lisbon, they exchange a sly glance. A few years of this reality were enough to make me realize that this is not where I want to be. As much as I understand everyone's freedom, I've decided to stay away from dating apps." And he emphasizes: "But before you can say 'enough, I don't want this any more', you have to have the courage to face up to everything that's on these apps: the nasty messages, the derogatory comments, the unwanted nudes - I have no qualms about it, but if I haven't asked, I don't want to see. Dating apps have made the process easier, and I'm eternally grateful for the dozen or so people I've met there who have become friends. But how healthy is it to be in this minefield?”

Almost a century separates the experiences of the Mowforths and Rui. The former lived in a time when "forever" was said with unshakeable conviction; today, "forever" is valid as long as nothing better comes along - or as long as we don't get tired of it, which is quite normal in modern times. The simple fact that we can choose who we want to be with (all it takes is a reciprocated swipe) makes everything more schizophrenic and dangerous. "I'm still from the days when" is a worn-out, empty and outdated expression, and yet we still use it because, in fact, we're still from the days when langoustines were put in the letterbox to attract the attention of our better half. Why langoustines? Well, why not langoustines? Thirty years ago there wasn't the technology there is today, which allows you to send memes and videos every time you want to say "hi, I'm thinking of you.” Thirty years ago we used to play with the things we had at hand: letters, postcards, the usual flowers, endless phone calls, not-so-secret meetings on the corner by the café, little notes exchanged in the middle of lessons... Everything took longer, was more innocent, more extraordinary. Nobody knew what was going to happen after a first date. Expectation was the key ingredient in relationships, which were built on embarrassed giggles and high doses of patience. Going from that to today's reality, where having sex seems to be easier than holding hands, is strange. We are aliens in our own territory. We've been forced to evolve, but our hearts haven't kept up with the detachment and indifference that now dominate dating. There's no room for caring or flirting, everything is for yesterday. Someone better than us could be on the other side of the screen - and usually is - so there's no point in stalling if it's not to fulfill the list of criteria the other person expects of us. If we're not a ten, we go back to the end of the queue. Next.

Like Rui, Mariana, 30, doesn't have many certainties either. In fact, all she has are doubts, because love, that four-letter word, seems increasingly complicated to understand. "It depends on how you approach relationships. I'm not a dating app person, it's like you're looking at a butcher's catalogue, this interests me, this doesn't interest me, you're putting people down to their physical appearance, their interests... But that's what it is. I'm not a big fan, because then you have to chat by message, you have to arrange that typical coffee... But nowadays, where do you go to meet new people? It's a bit complicated. Is it at night?" The mention, and subsequent criticism, of dating apps makes us think that, nowadays, it's effectively impossible to consider getting involved in love with another human being other than through a smartphone. The simple fact that "meeting new people" is a problem is proof that, back in the 1980’s, when we didn't even have a way of letting people know that we were three seconds late, we knew things that now, when we have an entire planet connected, we don't know. At what point in our evolution did we stop knowing how to talk to each other, how to strike up a conversation, how to swap a broom for a dance? Answer: when we started exchanging messages. That's more or less when civilization became brutalized, lost its senses and, without even knowing it, made a pact with the devil. We can have whatever we want, whenever we want it, but we just won't have what we really need - and, as punishment, we won't even be aware of it. How did we get here? Maria, 23, has an idea. "It's very easy to meet people, and that makes everything very replaceable. You have the apps and you meet people whenever you want and wherever you want, which gives you the feeling that you'll find more and better elsewhere, which ends up causing commitment problems - and I speak for myself, before you had a person and you thought you had to stay with them, and now you think you can find better elsewhere, which makes things very disposable. But then there's the other side of the coin, which is people who, because they think and fear this, immediately want to hold on to someone and have long relationships because they're afraid it will reflect on them." Nobody said it was easy. "I also think that my generation is coming to disbelieve in monogamy. Why should you spend your whole life with one person when you're going to meet a thousand? And social networks make that much easier. And then there are also situationships, which is when you're together but you're not exclusive - in other words, you have all the advantages of being in a relationship, except the commitment. I think this is huge in my generation, cases of people who are in situationships and never know where they stand." All of this has an impact on the way they understand "happily ever after", says Maria. "Our perspective on love forever... is that it doesn’t exist anymore! Because before, you had to stay in the same place all your life, and now you don't. Tomorrow, if you want to, you'll move to New York. It's all very unstable." It's all very unstable, indeed. Imagine someone, in 2023, saying the following lines: "Four years [without you] darling, and I'm more in love with you than ever. (...) We still have a hard way to go in this crazy world, but I don't care how long and difficult the future may be, as long as we're together." It's not worth imagining. Its author, Cyril Mowforth, wrote them in the middle of the Second World War, during which he never stopped listening to a voice we all have that whispers to us "courage, heart." He never got tired of hearing it.

*Originally translated from the Love & Hope Issue, published December 2023. Full credits and stories in the print issue.